Durham's Leuchanka wins Bobcat Bolt 5K

DURHAM — Aliaksandr Leuchanka and Nataliya Tereshchenko lived up to the name Bobcat Bolt.

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By Al Pike

seacoastonline.com

By Al Pike

Posted Jun. 22, 2014 at 2:00 AM

By Al Pike
Posted Jun. 22, 2014 at 2:00 AM

» Social News

DURHAM — Aliaksandr Leuchanka and Nataliya Tereshchenko lived up to the name Bobcat Bolt.

Both went out fast and cruised to victories in the sixth annual 5K road race Saturday.

Leuchanka, of Durham, was the overall winner by 40 seconds and Tereshchenko, of Nottingham, took the women's portion by more than a minute.

Leuchanka, the only runner to break 16 minutes, finished in 15 minutes, 42 seconds. Tereshchenko, the lone women's runner to go under 20 minutes, posted a time of 19:37 and was ninth overall.

Leuchanka's strategy was to "run with whoever was leading the race for a while and just go from there."

Dover's John Rogers was second overall in 16:22 and Durham's Jenny Mistretta was second in the women's race in 20:45.

Leuchanka and Rogers were the only runners to break 17 minutes. They were also running the Bobcat Bolt for the first time.

"I was hoping to win, but I came here to have fun," said Leuchanka, 23, a graduate student at UNH who ran track at the University of Albany. "We didn't really go out too fast because we knew there was a hill coming up in the first 400 meters. So that pretty much put everyone in a hole for a while. I think we all ran together at that point, and whatever happened after the hill, happened."

What happened was Leuchanka ran away from the field with Rogers, 35, having the only realistic chance of catching him.

The father of a new baby girl, it was Rogers' first road race of the season.

"That's what they teach you all through high school and college," said Rogers, who ran for Oberlin College in Ohio. "Crest the hill strong and stride out because you can do some damage there, and that's exactly what happened. On a better day I might have tried to stay closer, but the outcome was a given. He looked effortless pulling away."

Tereshchenko, 37, was even more dominant. A former cross-country skier on the Ukraine national team, she finished 1:08 ahead of Mistretta, a recent graduate of Oyster River High School who plans to run at Boston University.

Tereshchenko was second in the 10K last year. She was running the 5K for the first time Saturday. The Bobcat Bolt didn't include the 10K this year.

"I was trying to start as fast as I could and see if I could maintain it," said Tereshchenko, whose husband teaches at UNH. "I maintained it for about two miles and then I went downhill. I'm glad it was only three."

Mistretta was running her first Bobcat Bolt, which had 243 finishers Saturday.

"She took it out pretty fast," said Mistretta, who ran track and cross country at Oyster River. "I started to close in a little bit, but she was pretty far ahead of me."

In Somersworth, Kyle Williams, 22, of Newmarket was the top overall finisher at the inaugural Hilltop Hustle 5K. Williams crossed the finish line in 16:47. Portsmouth's Karen Blackwood, 28, was the first female finisher in 20:44.